Delete Identified "Already Imported" Photos from iPhone via Mac Photos App

I have a large amount of items (photos and videos) on my iPhone that have already been imported to the Photos app on my MacBook. I know this because when I connect my iPhone to my MacBook, the Photos app identifies a large group of items as "Already Imported."


To free up space, I would like to delete these items from my iPhone. I don't need them on there now that they have been imported to my MacBook. But there is no option to delete this group of photos identified to have been already imported.


Manually comparing all items on my iPhone to those on my MacBook is not an option as there are over 70,000 items. This also seems unnecessary seeing as the Photos app on my MacBook has already identified the imported items.


One solution that I thought of was to reimport all items from my iPhone to the Photos app on my MacBook with the "delete items after import" checkbox selected. This, in a perfect world, would delete this large group of items from my iPhone after re-importing them. Of course, this would likely create a duplicate of every item in my MacBook Photos app. My solution for the duplicates would've been to use the Duplicates folder on the MacBook Photos app to quickly remove all duplicates. But this cannot be done as the Duplicates folder in the MacBook Photos app (unbelievably) only allows users to delete around 5 duplicates at a time. It does not identify duplicates on one single page for the entire photo library or allow the user to take mass action.


SO- How can I delete the 70,000+ items that have been identified as "Already Imported" from my iPhone, without manually reviewing these one-by-one?


MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 14.4

Posted on Sep 17, 2024 4:36 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Sep 18, 2024 7:55 AM

I'm guessing that you are not using iCloud Photos to sync your Photos Libraries.


I think that your solution to "reimport all items from my iPhone to the Photos app on my MacBook with the "delete items after import" checkbox selected" is reasonable, with one suggestion:


Create a new Library, designate it as the System Library, import, and then trash the new Library.


You won't change the original Library at all, so it seems to give you what you want. You may need to again designate the original Library as the System Library in Photos>Settings>General. To create a new Library, you close Photos and option-click on the Photos icon.


What do you think?


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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Sep 18, 2024 7:55 AM in response to ❓❔❓❔❓❔

I'm guessing that you are not using iCloud Photos to sync your Photos Libraries.


I think that your solution to "reimport all items from my iPhone to the Photos app on my MacBook with the "delete items after import" checkbox selected" is reasonable, with one suggestion:


Create a new Library, designate it as the System Library, import, and then trash the new Library.


You won't change the original Library at all, so it seems to give you what you want. You may need to again designate the original Library as the System Library in Photos>Settings>General. To create a new Library, you close Photos and option-click on the Photos icon.


What do you think?


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Delete Identified "Already Imported" Photos from iPhone via Mac Photos App

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